Steven Seagal and Joe Arpaio have joined forces

Steven Seagal and controversial Sheriff Joe Arpaio, have joined forces. No, they’re not making a movie together, they’re going to save Arizona’s children.

Seagal, a once talented martial artist, and always bad actor, is helping Arpaio train volunteers to protect Maricopa County schools. Americans are clearly enchanted with gun-toting protagonists who take direct action to thwart evil, critics say the effort casts a cartoonish pall over a complex issue that can’t be solved by action heroics.

When NRA hierarchy states that “the only protection from a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun”, they are attempting to evade a much broader issue.

If Arpaio and Seagal believe that a few week’s training of some men and women is sufficient, they are sadly mistaken. But the two of them often make mistakes, ignoring the long lasting effects of their words and actions. Arpaio is an advocate of cruel and unusual punishment, mentally and physically, for those committed of crimes, not in rehabilitation which would help them find ways to live productive lives, and not return to the life that put them in confinement.

Seagal’s biggest mistake is making movies and television shows which are torturous to those who mistakenly watch them. With bad dialogue, bad acting, massive violence, and absurd story lines, they are but cartoons using live actors.

I have many questions about placing armed guards in schools. I’ll relate a few, just some things I think about.

What type of weapons will they carry? Will they have to qualify at a firing range frequently as do licensed officers? Will the weapons be loaded at all times? If so, how will they be protected from accidental discharge? Will these volunteers wear protective vests? If not, why? An attacker most likely would be. How well will they be trained to anticipate a surprise attacker? It’s doubtful someone armed with an assault rifle would walk right up to the “guard” and introduce himself.

There are more, but if these can’t be answered, the others don’t matter.

I’m not against the entire idea of increasing security in schools, but it has to be a well thought out program designed by present or former officers of the law, not by the sheriff in “Smokey and the Bandit”, and the “Karate Kid”.

We also need changes in the guns individual citizens have access to, and the number of lethal projectiles a magazine can hold. Gabby Giffords said it best, “it’s time”.